I feel like you managed to make this tip on its head, from what the composition would imply. It seems the composition should put Red in charge, and the wolf submissive... but you really feel for her terror of that wolf, small though he looks. The expression conquers the size relationship really well.

I noticed something interesting in this piece in that you've broken from the canon. The particular moment you illustrated isn't in the original fairytale--the tension of the scenes normally being derived from Red's naivete about the dangerous predator she's just encountered, rather than hiding from the wolf she understands could eat her.

And yet, the classic display of the characters, their costumes, attributes, and environment were so powerful that I failed to see the difference of your interpretation for days after first seeing it. Odd!

In any case, I'd like to know how the rest of the story (as you see it!) plays out from the moment you've chosen here.

But I like challenging the original telling which is creepy in a different way...(wolf poses as grandmother and naive little girl gets eaten only for wolf to be hacked open by a woodsmen = really weird). I like its moral "don't talk to strangers" but it's too unbelievably whimsical for me-- I'd rather try a more realistic take with an older girl who acts as the hero rather than the pint sized damsel in distress...

It's funny--one of the original orally told versions of the story featured Red as a colorful sort that outwitted the wolf by means of a striptease and averting the the bedside confrontation by proclaiming she had to take a crap outside. Oh, the various versions of fairytales and the diverse meanings they hold!